Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Meatless Monday Mushroom Disaster!

Monday night's dinner was a full blown thumping D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R...and TRUST me! I am NOT over exaggerating...

Over the weekend the 16 carefully packed and labelled boxes I had shipped from my parents' house in Toronto FINALLY arrived...leaving our front room looking like a cargo hold. Boxes, paper and styrofoam chips EVERYWHERE. Ideally I would have left the boxes until David was at work during the week to systematically tackle them....unfortunately the recylcing pickup due on Tuesday was for cardboard and paper (not that the cans, bottles and plastic that were supposed to be picked last week have been)...and due to the temperamental weather I couldn't be sure what would be picked up (if anything) or when the recycling men would be back again....so Saturday was largely spent unpacking boxes...filling bookshelves and dressers..leaving all the boxes and paper to be sorted and organised on Monday in preparation for recycling pickup on Tuesday morning.

Whether I was just too excited by the arrival of my "stuff" or totally in good-housewife overdrive...I made a fatal error...Saturday afternoon I ALSO decided to wash all of David's light coloured shirts, along with my gigantic table cloth and 12 matching napkins, new duvet cover and pillow cases, AND two bed sheets...not to mention various socks, undies and soccer stuff.....leaving a HUGE pile of ironing for Monday!!!

During the cold months and living in a DAMP country, with NO dryer and LIMITED space to hang up laundry means that EVERYTHING needs to be ironed after being hung for one day to dry...or risk smelling like damp dog....ick

So basically Monday I spent HOURS and HOURS ironing and HOURS uncrumpling paper and dismantling boxes for the recycling...totally losing track of time and was completely surprised when David's came home after work...I was totally frazzled by the time it came to make dinner....ending in a DISASTER to the nth degree.

Over the weekend I had decided that for Meatless Monday I would make a Hungarian feast of Mushroom Paprika with Spaztle...two delicious looking recipes from the World Vegetarian Classics book I got from the library.

Mushroom Paprika is similar to a stroganoff...except that there is a deep paprika flavour in the sauce...It is made by sweating chopped onions and mushrooms chopped quite chunky together in butter until the mushrooms lose all their moisture...then you add paprika and cayanne and cook until the oils are relased from the paprika....THEN...IF YOU ARE ME YOU CREATE A DISASTER WORTHY OF A TOM CRUISE MOVIE....you are supposed to add either sour cream, creme fraiche or natural yoghurt....I opted for yoghurt as we had bought a huge tub for our veggie curry over the weekend....WHAT I DIDN'T NOTICE WAS THAT IT WAS LOW-FAT......NO NO NO!!!!! When I added it to the pan it immedietly split and all the HUGE amounts of water totally evaporated leaving a total mess, which looked like (I am sorry to say it) a pile of sick....WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

So after a mild breakdown and the reassuring words of calming David...through sobs and sniffles and "Dinner is completely ruined" and "I can't eat that shhhhhh**"....I managed to make pretty decent looking and tasting Spaztle, which are like a cross between noodles and dumplings made by pushing a thick batter through a colendar over simmering slated water. It took FOREVER...but definetly saved the day!

Please ignore the disgusting looking mushrooms...They actually tasted really good...but I can imagine they would taste WAY better with the creamy sauce! I just wanted to show you the funny little Spaztle!

:) they don't look disgusting!!!And many of my dishes taste better than the way they look, it happens often!!Glad that you got the boxes!! :)Cooking is like being a scientist, I've experienced that so many times!and you're young, you've plenty of time ahead to learn..and I admit, you're already way too good!!Keep up the good work, your blog is sooo nice!I love reading what you write :)Annalisa

Rita...the Spaztle was really good, I was so happy with how that turned out...it over shadowed the mushrooms! Yes....we know there are many days like that ahead...meaning lots of laughter left to come!:)

Annalisa...thank you so much for your kind words!The mushrooms did taste great...just the look was bad...I AM going to try it again though!

Moogie...when it rains it pours! I just keep going to your blog and drooling over your fab creations! thanks :)

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Well hello there!!

Welcome to 21st century urban housewife! I hope that you enjoy my homely and sometimes scattered postings. I started this blog when my hubby and I first moved-in together. I wasn't working, so I was "keeping house" and writing about it. Since then, we've moved to Edinburgh and I've found myself in the middle of an active and enthusiastic foodie scene. While I'm still on a budget I'm allowing myself some indulgences...